Remembering Vilmos Zsigmond
Vilmos ZsigmondAlthough the great cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond died unexpectedly on New Year's Day, I missed the news and didn't learn of his passing until yesterday. I was amazed to learn that he was 85, since he always looked much younger and worked constantly, amassing a hundred credits as a cinematographer. According to IMDB, he had five projects lined up, an astonishing workload for someone in the sixth decade of his career.
Among Zsigmond's many features are "The Long Goodbye," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," "Deliverance," "The Deer Hunter," "Blow Out" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," for which he won an Oscar. (He was nominated three other times, for "The Deer Hunter, "The River," and "The Black Dahlia.") Unlike a lot of cinematographers, he didn't impose a visual signature on his films. Instead, he paid close attention to their scripts and shot accordingly. Perhaps because he was a director himself, he was particular about those he worked with. After shooting Steven Spielberg's debut, "The Sugarland Express," and later "Close Encounters," he decided that Spielberg saw him as "a glorified cameraman" and never shot another of his films.
I met Vilmos Zsigmond only once, at a filmmaking seminar in 1999. After finishing his talk, he settled in the audience for the rest of the program, sitting in my row. Because we had a mutual friend, I moved over and introduced myself. He was charming, we chatted, and for the next hour we were instant friends. The next segment featured some producers, and during the Q&A an audience member asked how they handled difficult directors. Vilmos laughed merrily and said to me, "I tell zem, 'Gettout of my shot!"
Yet he was notably generous, often making his directors' work look better than it was--see "Heaven's Gate." He also made a point of working with younger directors, including first-timers. (With the exception of Kevin Smith, who refused to vary his shots, they tended to take his advice.) He also worked in TV, most recently on "The Mindy Project," for which he shot twenty-four episodes.
Zsigmond was a both product of Hungary and a victim of it. In 1956, he and his friend and fellow film student László Kovács escaped the revolution together, filming as they went. After making their way to Los Angeles, the two worked on documentaries and horror films before getting their big breaks. (Kovács shot such classics as "Easy Rider," "Five Easy Pieces," "Ghostbusters" and the perfect "Paper Moon.")
Kovács died in 2007; now, with Zsigmond gone, the era of great Hungarian cinematographers in Hollywood has come to an end. Fortunately for us, their films live on.